It is sad that respectable scientists and engineers would debase themselves in this fashion. I frankly suspect that they are being used by someone, but it doesn't excuse it.
Sometimes when creationists come out with lists like this, a bit of enquiry reveals that some of the people on the list didn't sign off on it at all, and others only expressed agreement with something *similar* to the final product.
You wouldn't be saying this if they supported the global warming thesis.
Not everyone is intellectually dishonest. I'm quick to point out that a snowstorm doesn't disprove global warming, but I'm just as quick to point out that a warm spell doesn't prove global warming.
Though, for some reason, I rarely hear the latter.
At any rate, the opinion of a bunch of rocket jocks and engineers on climate is a yawner. This is not different form the lists creationists are so fond of publishing.
You just have to wonder if its more than coincidence that this gets announced on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Coincidence??? Hmmm...
And 2012, no less!
Oh, wait... two more years. We'll have to find something else to blame for the end of the world.
Do you have a source for that? What court was he on?
Google for zimmerman magistrate and you'll get lots of hits. (Including some irrelevant ones, such as a judge with that name in California.)
I had read that he had been on the state supreme court, but a look at the first few hits on the above search yields claims all over the map, from Federal judge, to Virginia supreme court judge, to Florida county judge, to...
It garnered (not garnished) national media attention because of the way the police and DA ignored it. Zimmerman was allowed to go home, with his weapon, and then the police and DA mostly forgot about it entirely.
It was actually worse than that. Zimmerman's dad, a former state judge, was present when they had him at the police station. The police recommended prosecution, but higher-ups said no.
It reeked very strongly of a miscarriage of justice. No, an abortion of justice.
Yeah, there's been *way* to much spin regarding guilt or innocence in the press, blogs, legislatures, etc. But we should expect the norms of legal procedure to be followed, without regard to skin color, background, or family connections.
And he isn't convicted: he's indicted. Looks to me like the legal system has merely gotten back on the rails. Hopefully no more funny business, or appearances of funny business.
I was really worried this guy was going to try to keep going. The way he speaks reminds me of Hitler, in both subject matter and candor. This whole business of fighting the good culture warrior fight makes me very nervous. I don't like Romney either, but he doesn't scare the bejeepers out of me the way Santorum did.
I worry at signs that the USA is headed toward fascism, but some browsing on Wikipedia about Germany in the 1920s reveals that we've still got a long way to go yet.
Political murders by gangs of thugs (from all shades of the political spectrum) was almost the norm. Here political murders are still pretty rare, and mostly carried out by individuals or small groups of thugs, rather than by nation-wide organizations.
Anyone who has even casually been following the republican primaries can see how incredibly twisted and corrupt the party is. How could anyone still think voting republican is a good idea? Not saying democrat is a great way to vote either, but there are other parties and it's about time for some fresh parties and directions. The old has not served us well for the past 20+ years.
IMO we should vote out the worst / most dangerous party until it fails, then start working on the (formerly) second worst, repeat until we have good government.
Unfortunately, most people apparently vote for whoever they think will boost their bank balance the most, unless that's trumped by some knee-jerk issue that some politician is peddling.
Neither are likely to improve our governance, though.
"We made a decision over the weekend that while the presidential race for us is over, and I will suspend my campaign effective today, we are not done fighting.'"
Fighting for what? Against the ideals of your own Church that basically came out and said that universal health care is a right? That evolution is just fine? That women don't have to be barefoot and in the kitchen? That the world is older than 6000 years? That social justice is a good idea?
Keep fuckin' that chicken, Rick.
I suspect he's going to keep fighting certain urges that make him a homophobe.
There's your problem. How about more thinking and less appealing to a non-existent sky-fairy? I truly look forward to the day when politicians can safely declare some sort of rationalist-based intellect instead of this, but I expect it's a long way off.
Rick Perry arranged a Day of Prayer for the drought in Texas, and it only got worse.
We used to take pride in the radical view that problems were something a secular government tries to fix, rather than appealing to the gods to stop inflicting on us.
Any enthusiasm about RP has to be tempered with the realization that even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day.
IMO he's a plutocrat just like every other Republican and Libertarian politician these days. I'm glad he isn't a warmonger, but that just puts him in the company of the "paleocons" rather than the company of sensible people.
The Tea Party wasn't some general movement, no matter how much its advocates stated, it was a Libertarian populist movement that was sucking the blood out of the Republican party.
No, it was (mostly) a bunch of middle- and working-class retirees, unwittingly carrying water for billionaires.
And after the first few weeks, only "populist" if being funded by the usual Republican operatives counts as being populist.
I think this whole race has been nothing more than a tactical day at the nut house, and the Republicans will have learned their lesson.
It will be interesting to see if they learn the appropriate lesson, but I don't expect it.
They had a good scam that served them well for half a century: pretend to be conservative rather than plutocratic, and lure people to vote against their own self-interest by playing on their fears, intolerance, and bigotry.
But they've had to keep narrowing that "base" (as the media insists on calling them) by ever more radical rhetoric against everyone else, and now it's getting so narrow that the coalition of plutocrats + bed wetters + social conservatives + bigots doesn't add up to enough people to reliably win elections anymore.
Plus, the plutocrats been appealing to those groups so long that the nutters are starting to run the nuthouse.
But where can they turn? The plutocrats (the real Republican base) certainly aren't going to give up their desire to enrich themselves at public expense, and the nutters aren't going to give up their nuttery.
I suspect the actual lessons to be learned are:
a) the plutocrats will realize they need to divorce the others, and will start looking for a new scam to replace the old one
b) the nutters will conclude that they weren't nutty enough, and crank it up two notches next time around.
The party's civil war will continue, because there's no exit strategy for when the nuts start taking over the nuthouse. Some chance the party will fall apart and be replaced by a new one, as has happened before in the USA, but I expect that to take years, if it happens at all.
Now all the Republicans who were whining about what a horrible candidate Romney was and how he wasn't any better than Obama get to shake, shake, shake etch-a-sketch and pretend to love him.
Queue some of Colbert's "Countdown to loving Mitt" videos.
Okay, so now will republican voters maybe start paying attention to Ron Paul? He's the guy who is ACTUALLY in favor of smaller governments and the constitution.
You guys still claim to like those things, right?
Politicians *claim* to like a lot of things. But if you want to know what they really stand for, ignore the speeches and watch what they do.
Good bye crazy douche-bag, you will not be missed.
According to conventional wisdom, the Republicans always nominate their runner-up next time around. I saw a couple of sites predicting Romney on this basis, long before the primaries started shaking out.
If the CW is right, Santorum will be their next nominee.
I have a hard time believing that Santorum actually expected to have a chance at this stage. My mother is a Neo-conservative Christian party-line voter, and even she is considering voting for Obama again; and not because she likes him. The entire GOP lineup is a mess.
At a conference of social conservative groups a couple of months ago, they anointed Santorum their choice. He may have figured the righteous right could trump the plutocrats.
But yeah, it has been becoming increasingly obvious that he wasn't going to be able to pull anything out of his, uh, hat.
Gingrich claims to be sticking it out, despite reports that his campaign is deeply in debt. I wonder if he's angling for a VP spot, or a Cabinet position.
I've gotten several letters asking me to join class action lawsuits, and I always send them straight to the trash.
These suits aren't going to result in any meaningful personal compensation for any harm or inconvenience you have suffered. The only time I would even consider participating is if I thought it was a case of such egregious bad behavior that the company needed to be punished.
Slashdot Mirror
It is sad that respectable scientists and engineers would debase themselves in this fashion. I frankly suspect that they are being used by someone, but it doesn't excuse it.
Sometimes when creationists come out with lists like this, a bit of enquiry reveals that some of the people on the list didn't sign off on it at all, and others only expressed agreement with something *similar* to the final product.
You wouldn't be saying this if they supported the global warming thesis.
Not everyone is intellectually dishonest. I'm quick to point out that a snowstorm doesn't disprove global warming, but I'm just as quick to point out that a warm spell doesn't prove global warming.
Though, for some reason, I rarely hear the latter.
At any rate, the opinion of a bunch of rocket jocks and engineers on climate is a yawner. This is not different form the lists creationists are so fond of publishing.
It's not just SCADA equipment where the OS can't be replaced due to the manufacturer failing to support anything newer than XP.
Plus, if you use SCADA you're probably fuxored already.
I'll bet vast sums of money that the world won't end within the next two years.
If it doesn't, I win big; if it does, I won't have to pay.
You just have to wonder if its more than coincidence that this gets announced on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Coincidence??? Hmmm...
And 2012, no less!
Oh, wait... two more years. We'll have to find something else to blame for the end of the world.
Slashdot needs a button that says "Submit, if this is going to be the FP; otherwise cancel".
Does anyone know what *actually* happened when everybody was saying the same thing about the end of support for Windows 95 a few years back?
Big problem, little problem, no problem?
Do you have a source for that? What court was he on?
Google for zimmerman magistrate and you'll get lots of hits. (Including some irrelevant ones, such as a judge with that name in California.)
I had read that he had been on the state supreme court, but a look at the first few hits on the above search yields claims all over the map, from Federal judge, to Virginia supreme court judge, to Florida county judge, to ...
...a century of sensational journalism and bad movies.
This is a local matter. Keep the damn politics off of slashdot... unless it involves technology.
Guns and hoodies are technology.
It garnered (not garnished) national media attention because of the way the police and DA ignored it. Zimmerman was allowed to go home, with his weapon, and then the police and DA mostly forgot about it entirely.
It was actually worse than that. Zimmerman's dad, a former state judge, was present when they had him at the police station. The police recommended prosecution, but higher-ups said no.
It reeked very strongly of a miscarriage of justice. No, an abortion of justice.
Yeah, there's been *way* to much spin regarding guilt or innocence in the press, blogs, legislatures, etc. But we should expect the norms of legal procedure to be followed, without regard to skin color, background, or family connections.
And he isn't convicted: he's indicted. Looks to me like the legal system has merely gotten back on the rails. Hopefully no more funny business, or appearances of funny business.
Too much politics here creeping on this site.
Did someone make you click on the story?
I was really worried this guy was going to try to keep going. The way he speaks reminds me of Hitler, in both subject matter and candor. This whole business of fighting the good culture warrior fight makes me very nervous. I don't like Romney either, but he doesn't scare the bejeepers out of me the way Santorum did.
I worry at signs that the USA is headed toward fascism, but some browsing on Wikipedia about Germany in the 1920s reveals that we've still got a long way to go yet.
Political murders by gangs of thugs (from all shades of the political spectrum) was almost the norm. Here political murders are still pretty rare, and mostly carried out by individuals or small groups of thugs, rather than by nation-wide organizations.
Anyone who has even casually been following the republican primaries can see how incredibly twisted and corrupt the party is. How could anyone still think voting republican is a good idea? Not saying democrat is a great way to vote either, but there are other parties and it's about time for some fresh parties and directions. The old has not served us well for the past 20+ years.
IMO we should vote out the worst / most dangerous party until it fails, then start working on the (formerly) second worst, repeat until we have good government.
Unfortunately, most people apparently vote for whoever they think will boost their bank balance the most, unless that's trumped by some knee-jerk issue that some politician is peddling.
Neither are likely to improve our governance, though.
Fighting for what? Against the ideals of your own Church that basically came out and said that universal health care is a right? That evolution is just fine? That women don't have to be barefoot and in the kitchen? That the world is older than 6000 years? That social justice is a good idea?
Keep fuckin' that chicken, Rick.
I suspect he's going to keep fighting certain urges that make him a homophobe.
"Prayer and thought".
There's your problem. How about more thinking and less appealing to a non-existent sky-fairy? I truly look forward to the day when politicians can safely declare some sort of rationalist-based intellect instead of this, but I expect it's a long way off.
Rick Perry arranged a Day of Prayer for the drought in Texas, and it only got worse.
We used to take pride in the radical view that problems were something a secular government tries to fix, rather than appealing to the gods to stop inflicting on us.
Any enthusiasm about RP has to be tempered with the realization that even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day.
IMO he's a plutocrat just like every other Republican and Libertarian politician these days. I'm glad he isn't a warmonger, but that just puts him in the company of the "paleocons" rather than the company of sensible people.
The Tea Party wasn't some general movement, no matter how much its advocates stated, it was a Libertarian populist movement that was sucking the blood out of the Republican party.
No, it was (mostly) a bunch of middle- and working-class retirees, unwittingly carrying water for billionaires.
And after the first few weeks, only "populist" if being funded by the usual Republican operatives counts as being populist.
I think this whole race has been nothing more than a tactical day at the nut house, and the Republicans will have learned their lesson.
It will be interesting to see if they learn the appropriate lesson, but I don't expect it.
They had a good scam that served them well for half a century: pretend to be conservative rather than plutocratic, and lure people to vote against their own self-interest by playing on their fears, intolerance, and bigotry.
But they've had to keep narrowing that "base" (as the media insists on calling them) by ever more radical rhetoric against everyone else, and now it's getting so narrow that the coalition of plutocrats + bed wetters + social conservatives + bigots doesn't add up to enough people to reliably win elections anymore.
Plus, the plutocrats been appealing to those groups so long that the nutters are starting to run the nuthouse.
But where can they turn? The plutocrats (the real Republican base) certainly aren't going to give up their desire to enrich themselves at public expense, and the nutters aren't going to give up their nuttery.
I suspect the actual lessons to be learned are:
a) the plutocrats will realize they need to divorce the others, and will start looking for a new scam to replace the old one
b) the nutters will conclude that they weren't nutty enough, and crank it up two notches next time around.
The party's civil war will continue, because there's no exit strategy for when the nuts start taking over the nuthouse. Some chance the party will fall apart and be replaced by a new one, as has happened before in the USA, but I expect that to take years, if it happens at all.
Now all the Republicans who were whining about what a horrible candidate Romney was and how he wasn't any better than Obama get to shake, shake, shake etch-a-sketch and pretend to love him.
Queue some of Colbert's "Countdown to loving Mitt" videos.
Okay, so now will republican voters maybe start paying attention to Ron Paul? He's the guy who is ACTUALLY in favor of smaller governments and the constitution.
You guys still claim to like those things, right?
Politicians *claim* to like a lot of things. But if you want to know what they really stand for, ignore the speeches and watch what they do.
Good bye crazy douche-bag, you will not be missed.
According to conventional wisdom, the Republicans always nominate their runner-up next time around. I saw a couple of sites predicting Romney on this basis, long before the primaries started shaking out.
If the CW is right, Santorum will be their next nominee.
I have a hard time believing that Santorum actually expected to have a chance at this stage. My mother is a Neo-conservative Christian party-line voter, and even she is considering voting for Obama again; and not because she likes him. The entire GOP lineup is a mess.
At a conference of social conservative groups a couple of months ago, they anointed Santorum their choice. He may have figured the righteous right could trump the plutocrats.
But yeah, it has been becoming increasingly obvious that he wasn't going to be able to pull anything out of his, uh, hat.
Gingrich claims to be sticking it out, despite reports that his campaign is deeply in debt. I wonder if he's angling for a VP spot, or a Cabinet position.
There's the map of The Brain; is anyone working on a map of Pinky?
I've gotten several letters asking me to join class action lawsuits, and I always send them straight to the trash.
These suits aren't going to result in any meaningful personal compensation for any harm or inconvenience you have suffered. The only time I would even consider participating is if I thought it was a case of such egregious bad behavior that the company needed to be punished.
Check out the (parody) trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJxj1mou03M
Now *that* is worth seeing.